This homemade deck cleaner is safe for plants and pets! Get your deck sparkling clean this summer with this easy to make deck wash!
Materials
- OxiClean powder
- Dawn dish soap
- 5 gallon bucket of water
- Stiff bristled scrub brush with a long handle
- Handheld scrub brush
- Hose with a nozzle with a strong jet setting
How to Use Homemade Deck Wash
Mix the Ingredients in Warm Water
Fill a five gallon bucket with warm water. Then mix in two cups of OxiClean and stir until all the powder is dissolved.
Then add a few long squirts of Dawn dish soap (no need to measure it). Stir again to make a soapy, bubbly mixture.
Rinse the Deck
Use a leaf blower or a broom to remove any loose debris from the deck. Then rinse the surface with a hose. Don’t forget the top of the deck railing too!
Apply the Homemade Deck Cleaner to the Surface
Dip the long-handled scrub brush into the homemade deck cleaner.
Then apply the soapy mixture to the wet deck boards with the brush. I recommend working in small sections. Leave the tiny bubbles to do their work for 5-10 minutes. If it starts to dry out, mist the surface lightly to keep it damp.
Lightly Scrub Away the Dirt
After leaving the deck wash on the surface for at least five minutes, give the area a light scrub with the brush. If the grime doesn’t come loose easily, give the solution a little longer to work. You can already see the brighter wood color underneath!
You can see puddles of grossness where the brush stopped at the end of this section. I really didn’t have to work hard to get all that nasty stuff to come off!
Rinse Away the Grime
Here’s the really satisfying part! Turn your garden hose to its most powerful setting (mine is at “JET”) and rinse away all that dirt and mildew.
Rinse Away the Grime
Here’s the really satisfying part! Turn your garden hose to its most powerful setting (mine is at “JET”) and rinse away all that dirt and mildew.
You can really see the difference between the dirty and cleaned sections of the deck here. This is after just a few minutes of light scrubbing!
Make sure to rinse the wood until the bubbles are completely gone from the surface. Just keep spraying until it doesn’t foam up anymore. Otherwise, your deck will be slippery from soap residue!
If your deck is extra dirty, you may want to repeat the process a second time. Even though ours looked horrible, it only needed one round of cleaning to make it look like new!